There seems to be a new-found concern for so-called fake news among major social media and newspaper giants, and given the misinformation on the matter, I thought I should put in my two cents’ worth.
2016 will be marked as a year of political turmoil and widespread resurgence of the whole spectrum of ideologies (over which one should keep a watchful eye). For better or worse, this tendency will continue throughout 2017, with public dissention and restlessness becoming ever more apparent. With the continually growing public realisation of the failure of western governance, it comes as no surprise that the demise of the current left-wing establishment is now a question of when rather than if.
With such ubiquitous disillusionment gripping swathes of people, new generations of individuals emerged on far-reaching, unsaturated platforms all over the internet, biting out massive chunks of viewership from the mainstream media, which has arguably failed to adapt to this change on multiple levels.
Alternative news outlets, think tanks and social media sites such as Breitbart, The Spectator, The Gatestone Institute, Minds, Gab and a great deal of individual online content creators and investigative journalists have now secured significant portions of disaffected citizens, and will only continue to expand their influence throughout 2017.
However, there are of course caveats to this prospect, one of which is the fresh attempt to regiment ordinary people’s lives in a new-found Orwellian nightmare – the defence centre against disinformation, more commonly known as The Ministry of Truth. This comes in tandem to the enforcement of so-called hate speech laws in Germany, with raids being carried out by police across the country on homes of those suspected to have written negative comments about asylum seekers.
With such draconian governmental policies being enacted throughout Europe, it’s safe to say that the powers that be have yet again shown their true colours – turning their overt, conceited contempt against ordinary folk into policy. What they do not seem to realise however, is that their time is fast coming to an end, in that they have yet to experience unprecedented levels of scrutiny in the coming years.
Having abandoned the principles that brought them to power, chief among which being freedom of speech and information, they are now on the defensive – desperately attempting to maintain control of their haemorrhaging support.
Out of nowhere comes the ‘fake news’ narrative – the issue which suddenly must be tackled at all costs. What is interesting is that fake news never ceased to be an issue, but for some reason has only now been elevated to the status in which immediate attention is required.
Indeed, fake news has existed since the internet’s inception and must be met and called out head-on. However, social media giants and their puppet news websites, all of which are beholden to corporate interests have attempted to lump in those news sources who disagree with them with actual fake news sites. This is one of many ill-conceived, failed attempts to silence the competition that have all but resulted in the reverse of what was originally intended.
If one were to venture a guess as to why fake news is suddenly the greatest issue of our time, one would be inclined to think it is the result of a panicked mainstream media being in denial of the reality that their influence has waned to the point where they can’t tip the scales in their favour any longer.
Still, it would seem like the narrative has been kicked into high gear, and may have worked somewhat. Following up on international discussions on the topic, a recent poll by the Times of Malta asked whether users should be “banned” for broadcasting “fake news” – the results showing a whopping 88 per cent approval. Perhaps this makes sense at face value, and indeed many would be inclined to agree. However, upon further inspection, it should immediately occur to one that this makes absolutely no sense.
If someone wishes to promote fake news, then that person should be allowed to do so, which is to say he has every right to ruin his reputation indefinitely
The problem here is that banning fake news inherently involves some sort of entity or person who must take the role of gatekeeper. The question that follows is: who is to be the arbitrator of what is and isn’t fake news? Who would you trust so totally as to imbue that person with the power to stop alleged fake news from ever reaching your ears? The Ministry of Truth perhaps, or God himself?
Do you really think there exists such an infallible, unbiased entity that would decide a priori what information you should be exposed to? Is this not an open invitation for abuse masquerading as a virtuous endeavour?
Evidently, many would say that setting up a ministry of truth to “combat fake news” is a good idea – they could not be more wrong, as there exists no such entity that could honestly decide what the individual should and should not be exposed to. But one needn’t worry too much, as if introduced, these ‘defence centres’ will be sure to mollycoddle and lull the population into an ignorant yet desirable false sense of utopic security – by neglecting, rewriting and changing any information that disagrees with their agenda.
This is also a confession of how little the people who promote this think of the population they supposedly serve. Rather than educate the masses to use their faculties of reason, they choose to implement a system whereby unaccountable gatekeeper(s) could simply rewrite history as they see fit, deeming every piece of news that disagrees with them “fake” and therefore eligible for purging.
In addition, the very idea of having a ministry of truth does not pass the most basic scrutiny, as if it could be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that a news story is fake, then why ban it? Why not simply allow things to unfold and let that fake source be broadcasted for all the world to see? If someone wishes to promote fake news, then that person should be allowed to do so, which is to say that person has every right to ruin his reputation indefinitely, with the entire world being a potential audience.
In truth, the only thing needed here is not another level of failed bureaucracy, but for individuals to take personal responsibility for the media they consume – but that entails fact checking, cross-referencing and time – something it seems people are unwilling to expend.
Adding to this general reluctance to engage with the veracity of news items is the hypocrisy embedded within the claim itself – as if we claim to care so much about fake news, then why not take some responsibility for what we allow to influence us? Are we not our own agents, capable of inquiry through reason and evidence? Do we need to be protected from so-called fake news?
This is to say that one cannot advocate a ministry of truth without also acknowledging that one is shedding the responsibility of critically analysing new information. In other words, individuals must be responsible for what they consume insofar as they claim to care about the truth.
The takeaway from all this is that ‘fake news’, which is bound to be broadly defined as per EU standards, sets a precedent for the destruction of written works that disagree with a tiny sliver of the ideological spectrum. Even in the highly unlikely scenario that such an endeavour is pursued with “the best intentions”, as yet, there is no entity that could ever be entrusted with such responsibility other than the individual himself.
So, it would seem like the EU – Germany being at the helm – is attempting to implement a system whose very premise is both wrong and conceited. Not to mention the blanket condescension towards the general public, who apparently cannot be trusted with honest reasoning, unlike the centralised, supreme, ministry of truth of course.
Therefore, it is entirely reasonable to say that the very process of verifying, questioning and debating news sources is under threat under the guise of a deceptively portrayed righteous cause.
Given that such an idea is at the very bedrock of an Orwellian nightmare, I must submit that the most promising, reasonable conclusion is one of flat-out rejection – in tandem with healthy scepticism (bordering on cynicism at this point) of the motives of those who would think so highly of themselves as to dictate what you can and can’t be exposed to.
Christopher Attard is a staunch advocate for free and open inquiry.